_SalD_

Eric,  Good choice to fix the tunnel, if you didn't it would have bugged you forever (I know from experience).

Eric,  Good choice to fix the tunnel, if you didn't it would have bugged you forever (I know from experience).

Eric,  Good choice to fix the tunnel, if you didn't it would have bugged you forever (I know from experience).

I've made broader progress that I'm not quite ready to write up yet, but here's a narrower update on a minor upgrade. The shape of the tunnel has been bugging me; it seems too squat. It wasn't really obvious to me until I'd finished the bluff, but now I can't un-see it. I think you can see what I mean in the paired photo below. The real one is significantly rectangular; mine is nearly square. Bugs me.
 

So I decided to renovate it. This meant raising the ceiling and narrowing the sides. Starting point:

I used a woodworking tool I had in a drawer, a rotary rasp that chucks into a power drill. It's meant for rough shaping of wood, but boy is it perfect for boring out a tunnel.



Then I filled in the sides with some new plaster.

Gave it a fresh base coat of paint:

And weathered it down:

That's much better. The beauty of this is that I'm modeling the period not long after this tunnel was freshly blasted. So it's actually perfect to have the area right around the portal look a little disrupted and different from the rest of the rock. I didn't weather it quite as much, leaving the color a little fresher. 
 
I'm pretty pleased with how this came out. Just shows it's worth going back and reassessing your work now and then. 
 
I've also been working on the longer bluff line on the other end of town, along the river, but am not quite ready to share that progress yet. Thanks for the fun discussions above, and for all your interest!
 
 
 

Fore lower yard braces
As per the instructions the rigging for these braces is to run from the pendants back to cleats located at the stern of the ship.  However after studying bobandlucy’s  Harriet Lane build I decided to change this rigging a bit.  The reason for this change was that while studying bob’s build I noticed that his lifeboat placement interfered with the midship gun ports.  To avoid this I thought I would move the lifeboats farther astern.  If I did this though, then the lifeboat stanchions would interfere with the lower yard brace rigging.  My solution was to start the rigging tied to the main stay then through the block on the end of the pendant then back to a block fastened lower down on the main stay to another block fastened farther down on the main stay and then tied off to a cleat on the bulwarks.



 
The hardest part of doing this was attaching the cleat to the inside of the bulwark.  If you look at the picture above you’ll notice a little hole in the side of the hull that goes all the way through. That’s the only way I could drill the hole to attach the cleat on the inside of the bulwark.  Now I need to fill the hole and paint. 

Fore lower yard braces
As per the instructions the rigging for these braces is to run from the pendants back to cleats located at the stern of the ship.  However after studying bobandlucy’s  Harriet Lane build I decided to change this rigging a bit.  The reason for this change was that while studying bob’s build I noticed that his lifeboat placement interfered with the midship gun ports.  To avoid this I thought I would move the lifeboats farther astern.  If I did this though, then the lifeboat stanchions would interfere with the lower yard brace rigging.  My solution was to start the rigging tied to the main stay then through the block on the end of the pendant then back to a block fastened lower down on the main stay to another block fastened farther down on the main stay and then tied off to a cleat on the bulwarks.



 
The hardest part of doing this was attaching the cleat to the inside of the bulwark.  If you look at the picture above you’ll notice a little hole in the side of the hull that goes all the way through. That’s the only way I could drill the hole to attach the cleat on the inside of the bulwark.  Now I need to fill the hole and paint. 

Fore lower yard braces
As per the instructions the rigging for these braces is to run from the pendants back to cleats located at the stern of the ship.  However after studying bobandlucy’s  Harriet Lane build I decided to change this rigging a bit.  The reason for this change was that while studying bob’s build I noticed that his lifeboat placement interfered with the midship gun ports.  To avoid this I thought I would move the lifeboats farther astern.  If I did this though, then the lifeboat stanchions would interfere with the lower yard brace rigging.  My solution was to start the rigging tied to the main stay then through the block on the end of the pendant then back to a block fastened lower down on the main stay to another block fastened farther down on the main stay and then tied off to a cleat on the bulwarks.



 
The hardest part of doing this was attaching the cleat to the inside of the bulwark.  If you look at the picture above you’ll notice a little hole in the side of the hull that goes all the way through. That’s the only way I could drill the hole to attach the cleat on the inside of the bulwark.  Now I need to fill the hole and paint. 

Turning all done, chair glued up.  Stain and finish next and then make the woven seat cushion.
 

 

 

 

 
 

Completed the spindle chair I've been working on.  Had fun building it and turning all the turnings on the Taig lathe.  Learned a lot about turning with this lathe and what not to do and what you can do with this lathe.
 
Enjoy the pictures!!
 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Hello all.  Well it took me a little longer than I planned to get back to my build but it’s been a heck of a year.   First, as per my previous post, we had our daughter’s wedding which went off without a hitch.  It was a beautiful day and a good time had by all.  Then things went downhill a bit. First it was hurricane Helene and then Milton, the latter of which made landfall right where we live in Florida on Siesta Key.  Fortunately we didn’t have any major damage to the building other than some minor water infiltration.  There was a lot of landscaping damage however.  After that crisis settled down two of my three daughters had to be admitted to the hospital for different issues at different times.  Fortunately again everything worked out and now everyone is fine, thank God.  Now that things are somewhat back to normal I’m going to try and finish the Harriet Lane.
 
Being away for so long it took me awhile to figure out where I left off and where all my parts were located but after a while I got back into the swing of things. 
 
Fore lower yard sling:
I thought I would change things up a bit and use a different lower yard support sling than what was detailed in the instructions. I decided to use some of the left over chain that was used for the anchor chains and chain trusses to make the sling. The chain was looped around the top of the mast cap and the two ends were brought together with a chain link with a hook attached.  The hooked was connected to an eye bolt fastened to the top of the yard.
 

Fore lower yard lifts:
The lower yard lift rigging was modified from what was shown in the instructions by bring each end of the lines down to a block and tackle that was secured to the ships rail and tied off to a belaying pin.
 

  In ordered to do this I needed to make and fasten pin rails to the interior side of the bulwark.  At this point in the build this wasn’t an easy feat. 


The lift lines were rigged through the blocks previously attached to the end of the yard and below the mast cap and then brought down and finished by seizing a double block to its end.  A single block was stropped with a hook and eyelet and hooked to an eyebolt fastened to the ships rail.  The halliard was rigged and belayed to the pin rail.

 
I'm not sure if I explained this too well but if you would like more detailed information I used the book 'RIGGING PERIOD SHIP MODELS' by L. Petersson as a guide (page 38).  Thank you all for following (if I have any followers left after the long hiatus) and it's great to be back.
 

Hello all.  Well it took me a little longer than I planned to get back to my build but it’s been a heck of a year.   First, as per my previous post, we had our daughter’s wedding which went off without a hitch.  It was a beautiful day and a good time had by all.  Then things went downhill a bit. First it was hurricane Helene and then Milton, the latter of which made landfall right where we live in Florida on Siesta Key.  Fortunately we didn’t have any major damage to the building other than some minor water infiltration.  There was a lot of landscaping damage however.  After that crisis settled down two of my three daughters had to be admitted to the hospital for different issues at different times.  Fortunately again everything worked out and now everyone is fine, thank God.  Now that things are somewhat back to normal I’m going to try and finish the Harriet Lane.
 
Being away for so long it took me awhile to figure out where I left off and where all my parts were located but after a while I got back into the swing of things. 
 
Fore lower yard sling:
I thought I would change things up a bit and use a different lower yard support sling than what was detailed in the instructions. I decided to use some of the left over chain that was used for the anchor chains and chain trusses to make the sling. The chain was looped around the top of the mast cap and the two ends were brought together with a chain link with a hook attached.  The hooked was connected to an eye bolt fastened to the top of the yard.
 

Fore lower yard lifts:
The lower yard lift rigging was modified from what was shown in the instructions by bring each end of the lines down to a block and tackle that was secured to the ships rail and tied off to a belaying pin.
 

  In ordered to do this I needed to make and fasten pin rails to the interior side of the bulwark.  At this point in the build this wasn’t an easy feat. 


The lift lines were rigged through the blocks previously attached to the end of the yard and below the mast cap and then brought down and finished by seizing a double block to its end.  A single block was stropped with a hook and eyelet and hooked to an eyebolt fastened to the ships rail.  The halliard was rigged and belayed to the pin rail.

 
I'm not sure if I explained this too well but if you would like more detailed information I used the book 'RIGGING PERIOD SHIP MODELS' by L. Petersson as a guide (page 38).  Thank you all for following (if I have any followers left after the long hiatus) and it's great to be back.
 

Interesting question; absolutely not. (a) I don't want to personally work with anything like that, (b) they're all set with glue and not sitting around like a light flammable powder, (c) any broader fire risk comes from the extensive wooden benchwork, not a thin skim of glue-fixed natural material. 
 
Thanks! It's definitely a challenge thinking through the real setting and trying to figure out how to translate it into a version that's simultaneously scaled down but also true to eye.
 
Having said that, I should have waited to post the results above. Shortly after I did, Mrs. Scenic Consultant came in from the garden and had a look. She agreed that the material was coarser than scale, but also had a very good idea how to adjust it. She suggested rubbing off some of the coarsest outer layer, which I tried, and it worked brilliantly. What happened was that the material that had truly embedded in the glue stayed, dulling the painted plaster surface and giving a sense of texture, but some of the material that was sticking up more and really looking coarse went away, making the grain/particle size less obvious. It's a bit hard to explain this change, but I tried a series of photos this morning to see if I could get the comparison across.
 
(1) Original painted plaster creek bank. Too smooth, uniform, and shiny, though the color and base shape are good:

 
(2) Sifted leaf and sand application. Improves the texture and complexity, kills the "shine", but a bit coarse (I started to realize that the flatter surfaces looked a bit like a power company wood chipper had been through). And the area along the creek bank is a bit too gravely for an area that in real life is mostly muddy rather than rocky:

(3) Same texture after the upper layer has been rubbed away. Now there's a more subtle blend of "powder" and coarser material dulling the surface, maintaining that complex natural non-plaster look, but less of the "wood-chipper and gravel" effect:

I thought (2) was fine until I saw what (3) accomplished, and that's now the new approach. The material that gets rubbed off can be collected and re-used elsewhere, so it's not a waste.
 
It's less fun if you're not learning!
 

Got a little more scenery work done this weekend. It was time to start adding texture to the riverbanks and ground surface, so everything doesn't look like smooth plaster. As I've said before, one of the reasons I'm setting this project in late fall / early winter is that it lets me produce a lot of scenery material from natural sources rather than buying lots of plastic/fake stuff. It's hard to maintain a natural green color, especially one that looks real, but natural brown tones are a lot easier to come by.
 
I started with a bin of dried leaves I'd set aside, running these through an old blender in batches to pulverize them. Some bits never shred all the way, so I used a sieve to select for the smaller sizes.



In my head, I call this blend "fish food" because it looks an awful lot like the flakes used to feed aquarium fish.
 
Similarly, I collected a batch of fine sand from the creek on my property, which has the same geologic setting as the headwaters of the creek depicted here. A similar sifting process gave me a blend of scale "gravel". In both cases, using natural materials gives a spectrum of subtle natural color variations that I find a lot more visually complex and realistic than purchased scenic materials with a limited range of tones.

 
To apply this on the landscape, I brushed full-strength glue over the painted plaster, then sifted/sprinkled material onto it. I ran a band of nearly pure "gravel" along the creek, then slowly reduced its quantity as I worked up the bank, increasing the proportion of leafy material. By the upper floodplain surface, it's almost all leaf material. To my eye, this gives a really natural looking transition out of the creek and up into an area that will have a lot more trees and vegetation. 

All of this material is coarser than true scale, but I find that it helps the eye "see" the right texture. In my opinion, true scale material would be so fine it would "look" too smooth. A strong modeling belief I hold is that it's just as important that a scene "look" or "feel" right than that it "be" right. And to my eye, this creates a feel that the eye connects to real landscape textures even if it's technically out of scale. The random chaos of the particle shapes, in both the leaves and the sifted sand, also helps create a more natural-looking texture than purchased material that tends to be more uniform. At least that's my opinion. And philosphically, I just love that these scenic textures are all-natural and sourced from a landscape near the actual real-life scene.
 
Here are a couple broader shots showing the finished effect on this bank. I also added some coarser rock material along the base of the bluff to blend the transition from vertical to horizontal, and to produce the effect of fallen rocks that's very much there in real life. I'm finding that the finished textures looks different in these photos than it does in person, though, and my phone isn't handling the depth of scene here well.


But that gives the idea. I haven't run this by my in-house landscape expert, though, so we'll see what she thinks. It can be adjusted if needs be. Once we're happy with it, I can start working on trees and other vegetation that will further tie the scene together.
 
Thanks so much for following, liking, commenting, and being a part of this slow-moving project!
 

Thanks, Gary!
 
The current appearance of this scene, and particularly this angle, has been nagging at me, reminding of some famous railroad scene or photograph.

I finally figured out what it was: this view of Weber Canyon on the original Union Pacific transcontinental route (photo from Library of Congress). 

Sheer rock wall, truss bridge over river, leading directly into tunnel. The similarity will start to fade once my scene starts taking on more vegetation, but the comparison amused me.

I spent some time this morning adding color & texture to the rocks using artist's pastels. I use these all the time for weathering models, and they're really effective at finishing scenic settings as well. They don't drip, and can be rubbed in with fingers or brushes (old toothbrushes work really well). Their powdered texture adds a "softness" to rock faces that paints don't, which helps them feel more realistic. I also touched up the backdrop with these, which again softens the painted took and allows more subtle textures than paints do.
 
Here's a broad view:

Here's a closeup of the rock face. The pastels let me add mineral staining as well as streaks of white that simulate the various layers of white-grey chert laced within the limestone beds. I also added smoke stains above the tunnel.

And for further comparison, I made these three sets of photos with similar perspectives. First, modern portal and model equivalent. This shows one thing I didn't get right; it's becoming clear to me that my tunnel shape is a little too squat; it should be taller for its width. Can't change it now and it'll still clear trains fine.

Second, historic photo directly down the tracks and model equivalent:

Third, historic photo from side and model equivalent. I've mentioned this before, but I know the bridge doesn't quite match. For now I'm using a simple kit; someday I'd be happy to build a  closer-matching bridge from scratch but it's not my priority.

I think I'm happy with the coloration, so the next step is to move on to things like adding ground-surface texture, water, and eventually trees (so it stops looking like Wyoming).
 
Thanks for following along!
 
 

Made some progress on base-layer scenery painting this week, taking a few minutes over multiple nights to slowly build up layers of color. Right now, without any vegetation, it looks like somewhere in Utah or Wyoming. But that'll change.
 
I also took a first stab at some basic backdrop painting, just trying to add a hint of hills/river extending into the background. This isn't meant to be photo-realistic, just enough to let the eye realize that it's not all backdrop sky back there. 
 
Also, the creek has been painted but I haven't added the model "water" yet, so it's just a dry surface. There will be multiple layers of "water" resin added, building up a sense of depth and a smooth surface. I also plan to tint the "water" some, as the real creek here tends to be pretty muddy, and this also helps fade the water into the painted "depth".
 
Most of the ground surface will be covered in various scenic materials to add texture, so the painting there doesn't need to stand on its own, but just provide an underlying foundation.
 
I'm not done with either the backdrop or the main bluff. Final touches on the bluff will include some more dark washes to bring out texture and cracks, and some vertical washes to simulate mineral streaking. The backdrop needs more texture, and the outer edges will be sharped up once I paint the sky (which I haven't done yet at all; that's just white primer).
 
But I thought I'd share progress and get feedback. You can at least get a sense of where I'm going with this.



Oh, and here are a few more winter context shots. I'm going for late fall, so no snow or ice, but otherwise the color palette is similar.
 

The “leak” turned out to be an “error in thinking”, water dripped out of the flood zones, not the watertight compartment! 
 
Decals replaced and in clear coated with a brush (instead of airbrush) hopefully has a thicker protective coating. 

The boat was a bit heavy after so put a bit of floating foam under the deck. 
 
then today we went with a small group to my model sailing club. Sunny weather, about 1-3 feet of pretty clear water, could not be better. 
 
amd the boat sailed - a bit too fast, very easy to dive and surface and a huge turning radius. Still work to be done, but the boat is fully under control and I’m very happy!

Found a bit more time this weekend for another round of scenery work. This time I used a patching plaster from the hardware store to spread a thin coating over the rock work, using my fingers and other tools to make a finer bedding-plane texture than the coarse plaster allowed. This smoothed out the surface a bit and gave it a more complex texture that I like, though I'm not sure it comes through well in the photo. It's meant to capture the finely bedded, pitted surface of this limestone. Once I start adding color I think this will really come alive.


 
I also filled in the creek bed and some of the flatter area to the right.
 


Once these areas are fully dry I'm going to go over them with a fine sanding block. Anything that isn't rock bluff will be covered by various scenic materials anyway.
 
And here's one more view of this scene.

Really looking forward to getting some color on this whiteout!

I managed to steal an evening and do a little scenery work. This is a first round of plaster on the bluff face hosting the Rocheport tunnel along Moniteau Creek. Here I'm trying to get the basic shape of the bluff in place with some underlying geologic structure, such as the roughly horizontal bedding, various vertical joints breaking up the rock face, and the more chaotic rock texture right around the portal (both because of blasting and because the nature of the limestone changes there for technical reasons I'll maybe nerd out about at some point).


And the real thing:

Also made progress on the creek's banks:

Next step is to finish sealing in the creek bed and do some touch-up and additional detailing on the bluff face. When I'm comfortable with its texture I'll start first coats of paint. But this at least shows you I haven't completely stalled!

I was going to do a diorama then figured I’d need a lot of figures and the back hatches are not open which they would be for operation. So this should do  

No further modeling progress has been made due to an overload of family visits, work deadlines, the onset of spring garden/orchard season, and more. So here's a little more background context to keep you all interested.
 
Below is a rough track plan that will continue to evolve but is guiding my work. I've spent two years researching and adjusting this and it's pretty close to my final "ideal" design. The arrangements at Rocheport and McBaine are quite accurate representations of those settings with some necessary tweaks and compression. The depiction of Franklin Jct and New Franklin follow the general pattern of the railroad there but the literal track arrangements have been adjusted more heavily to match the requirements of space and operational interest. The  bridge over the Missouri River at Boonville is nearly 8 feet long, but is only about a third the length of the real thing. I plan to go through all of these scenes in more detail to discuss how I designed the track plan for each and how they match up with reality but this at least gives a loose sense of the plan. This also shows the modular design I'm following.
 
Below the track plan is a rough map of the real railroad's route through the modeled area, laid over a lidar elevation map of the terrain. This helps illustrate how the Missouri River valley dominates the setting, flowing through a valley over 2 miles wide at Boonville and lined on either side with tall bluffs rising 200' above the floodplain. The railroad's main line comes up across southwest Missouri from Oklahoma and Texas, through the city of Sedalia (off-layout), then crosses the Missouri River at Boonville. At Franklin Junction, the railroad splits, with the original main line continuing north toward connections with Chicago, while the newly built (mid-1890s) Missouri River extension headed east along the river valley to connect with St. Louis. You can see how the line hugs the northern side of the valley, pinched between the bluffs and the meandering river.
 

And here's a full MK&T route map from the same era, originally from the Katy Railroad Historical Society. I've highlighted the modeled area in red:
 

 
The layout's basic design is intended to provide two different but equally important (to me) operating goals: a connected loop allowing for continuous "railfan" running, but also a point-to-point design that lets trains be operated in a realistic manner from one staging yard, through the modeled portion, and back into staging again. For example, in the design above, trains leaving the staging yard to the right are heading north from Sedalia, while trains leaving to the left are heading west (railroad south) from St. Louis. When they re-enter the staging yard after transiting the modeled layout, they can simply be re-staged as a new train later in the operating sequence. Franklin yard is where freights are broken down and remade for various destinations down the line in all three directions, though I'm not really modeling the northern branch toward Chicago because I don't have space. Local freights also originate here to work the route through Rocheport and McBaine. The Katy ran three passenger trains a day each way on this line during this era, along with regular freights and livestock trains.
 
That will make sense to the model railroaders reading this; if it doesn't to others, please say so and I can explain in more detail. Or ask any other questions; it'll still be a while before I can get back to real modeling work so this is as good a time as any to engage in the intellectual side of this project.

The past weeks were about making everything ready for balance tests in water following the rough trimming I had done in my bath and the one night sailing. For that I needed the weight (distribution) to be close to final.
 
Ive painted and mounted the net cutter, turned two periscopes on my mini-lathe, made an aft mast that will double as the air exit from the tank, made the floats to close all 4 hatches when the boat dives, and mounted the bridge equipment (radio direction finder, compass and helm). Still some smaller details to do but the boat looks great!
In my plexiglass test tank the boat lies level on the waterline. I would prefer a slightly higher nose-up attitude.
Then started the pump to fill the tank. The pump is programmed to stop after 27seconds, which was enough to fill the tank in earlier “partial” tests. Now it brought the boat to “decks awash” but not to neutral buoyancy.
Took the boat out, weighed it on a kitchen scale (3,9kg) and then emptied the tank (now 3,4kg). As the tank volume is 600ml the tank was clearly not full. Maybe the air exiting through the mast is giving some back pressure.

 
On repeating this twice  the boat came lower in the water (and more nose heavy). Now the boat with full tank was 4,1kg. Do I have a leak or did I fill the tank more?
Took the boat out, there was a small amount of water in the water tight compartment (may 10-20ml), not enough to trigger to water sensors. 
 
Ok, it’s clear that I need to change the tank filling procedure (fill longer and end with a slow top up fill?) to try to get the tank totally full always. 100 gram more or less has a huge effect on the stability underwater. There is no point in adding or moving weights until the tank is always full. 
 
I have a list of other issues (find the leak, one decal came off for example), so my task list for the coming weeks is set - and that was what the testing was for!
 
Thanks for your attention - this phase of fine tuning subs is always time consuming (and fun), and I’m very happy with the overall look of O-13!

More work on the boiler; fenders added on main drive wheels, and boiler permanently mounted to the chassis.
 
The instructions suggest that the roof be left removable to see the mechanics inside, but I'm going to eventually glue it down.  You can see the mechanics through the window well enough, and later on there's a fitting from the boiler to the roof that looks like it would end up being loose and clumsy if fitted in such a way as to make the roof removable.  So I'll glue it.
 
The color pictures that are the guide to painting also suggest that the pipes be painted the same beige as the fittings, but I like the look of brass and it works well here.
 
Regards,
David

Great work Jack, love the jig.

The cranes have been completed, the main cables are 0,3mm stainless steel which hopefully stays nicely straight over time.  In the background the same cranes as I built them from wood twelve years ago on my K-XVIII model (after sailing 78times these still look good!).


Also the wooden deck has been constructed from 1x1 mm wood bought at a rare model shop. A bit thick at this scale, but I don’t think I can sand it down nicely enough, so I’ll leave as is. 

For the moment covered by two layers of clearcoat, will add some more once the decals are mounted.